Variety will cost you

Would you pay for your favorite movie site to get the news? Well for Variety and The Hollywood Reporter it looks like that's the way it might be going.

In this age of rapid technology, it's getting hard for any paper medium. Anything that a person could possibly read is more easily accessible on the internet. Well, the trades are most certainly hurting between low sales and layoffs. Despite Variety spending 6 months to weigh their options, publishers Neil Stiles and Brain Gott have decided that after the first of the year they will be going with the pay strategy. This means that the website and print will available to those willing to pay for a subscription. Unfortunately Variety has lost a lot of money since they pulled their pay service back in 2006.

On the other side of things The Hollywood Reporter is possibly about to get rid of their daily print version. Originally they thought that the end date would be October 16th but they've recently pushed it further. They might put out special print issues during awards season for example.

So how will this all turn out for Variety and THR? We cannot be too sure. Variety could do a repeat of what happened in 2006, or they could benefit from THR dropping their print issues. Then again, if Variety is making people pay for content will THR reap the benefits of that? Nowadays, everyone wants to get the most out of free content that they can, so in the end will they both suffer?

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What do you guys think about this? Would you pay for Variety or any other website dedicated to covering your interests? And does the printed page matter anymore?